Ed.

Crazy. After the other day I figured that it was borderline suicidal to ride when schools were getting out. I found school bus drivers to be unfailingly polite and helpful (until today), but parents in private cars were, umm, to be charitable, not so.

However, today I was just about passed by a school bus when it slowed and moved over to drop of kids. Nearly ran me over the curb. I caught myself on the bus door just as two young girls were stepping off. Scared the poor kids to death, and my non-diplomatic comment to the driver, "Who the hell taught you to drive." Didn't help much. He threatened to call the police, and I rode off, only to have him do the same thing a second time.

I bolted for home and sent an email, giving details, to both the School Superintendent and the town police chief. Thus far I've heard nothing from either, but tomorrow I will visit the police station and make a formal complaint. I'm pretty good at threading a needle on a bike, but there's lots who would have gone down if a victim of such a stunt.

Tomorrow I'll get out earlier!

PS: The bus number was '666'. How appropriate.

flynn_gabriel

Lets not forget the high school(kids) drivers. I avoid the H.S. like the plague. There all a buncha effing idiots. I have very little tolerance for them. I am a big guy 6'5" 250lbs. Scary in my own right. then add in the mix that I'm autistic and Have a short fuse when I'm on edge.
Kinda a funny story, it happened 6+years ago: I was riding to my now wifes work with a Bob trailer with a small tool box on it. I was headed to do the brakes on one of her coworkers cars. I was riding by the high school right as school was letting out. Some kids thought it would be funny to throw a FULL coke can at me. Luckily it bounced off my top tube(dented it by the way), I caught up with them at the light. I was wearing steel toed boots, I put my foot all the way into his TRUNK..... well neither of us knew there was a sheriff saw the whole thing. Pulled both us over, the kid jumped out of the car started spouting off how I kicked his taillight out and he wanted me arrested. The sheriff told him to get back in his car. He asked me if I was ok and did I want to press charges. I told him I was ok and didn't want to press charges just stick it to him. the kid got a ticket for a busted taillight, and I think too many people not enough seatbelts, and one of the kids had drugs on there person. ��

Soody

Yep, that's a classic bus move. It happens to me several times a week. There's nothing you can do about it. Drivers flip straight into defensive victim mode when you criticize them in any way, so try to bear in mind that anything you say is for YOUR benefit- pure venting. If you expect to talk them into good behavior, all you'll do is make them even more hostile to cyclists in future.

Stay safe & keep your cool- it really is like dealing with a bunch of hungry tired children who have guns.

scozim 

My teen learning to drive last year (the one we're 90% sure will wrecj a car) would not pull into the other lane to pass a cyclist on a rural road with no other traffic around. He said he only had to give them 3 ft. Mind you we were traveling at 50 miles an hour and he can't judge distance to save his life. He then proceeds to say "they don't belong on the road anyway." What a flippin idiotic comment to make when your cyclist father is sitting in the passenger seat. He got one heck of an earful the rest of the way home and didn't drive for a few days after that.

jetboy 

This post brought to mind one of my most vivid memories from when I was in jr. high: A brush with death when on a rural mountain road I came around the corner to see a wall of 6000lb Yellow metal barreling right down the middle of the road. With my now 40+ year old reflexes I would be dead, but with my 12 year old synapses firing full speed, I dove to the left (yes, the right was taken!) riding the inches between me and the cliff on one side and in an instant I was on the other side and alive. I am sure that the bus driver never even saw me.

zonatandem

A regular city bus cut me off and tried to force me off the road, coming within about 2 inches of succeeding.
Saw the driver laughing in his right sideview mirror
Called the bus company and explained what happened, gave the time, place and bus number and was told 'we can't do anything about it'. Told the person on the phone I would press charges for 'attempted vehicular homicide' and I would follow up and see what they did about it the next day. Called and was told the driver was reprimanded and pulled off that route.

Lascauxcaveman 

Jeezus. I would have told him to pull over, pushed him out the door and told him he can walk home.

I've taught both my teenaged daughters to drive, and have informed them that it is illegal, believe it or not, to run down a cyclist or a pedestrian. "You could get a ticket for that."

All kidding aside, I tell them the first time (and every time) they sit in the drivers seat that the most important responsibility of the driver is not to crash into anything. Everything else is pretty much secondary. They've ridden enough with their mother to know that that's pretty good advice.

neamatoad

this is why you don't pass on the right...

jetboy 

believe me its amazing. I was on my moto came up to a 4 way stop intersection- and to my right was a bicycle and a station wagon arriving. the bicycle was first to the stop, i gave him a nod. and the next thing I know the station wagon blows through without even stopping- I was in my right and if I had gone, I would have been road meat. I was so pissed I followed the station wagon home. (it was about 2 houses down) and stopped and knocked on the door.

turns out it was a mother so pissed at her daughter (who was riding shotgun) that she didn't care if she killed anyone. So wrapped up in her own world. Lesson: You cannot change the world: best thing is to take care of yourself and always expect others to act first out of spite anger and self interest.

worst part is she was like "I thought you made eye contact" and I was like: NO, I was giving the nod to the bicyclist- and even with a nod you don't not stop at a stop sign@!. and she was like "what bicyclist???"

yeah... she hadn't even seen him. dangerous my friends.

busdriver1959

Read it again. He wasn't passing on the right, the bus was passing him on the left. Except that it didn't pass him before turning into him.

wahoonc

Not to armchair parent... but I would not allow someone with that attitude to have a license. Nothing says you HAVE to get a driver's license at age 16.

Aaron

jimmuller 

Scary stories, of course. We all have them. My experience with school bus drivers so far this year is that they think just because it's a school bus they can be as discourteous as they wish. Okay, I give them whatever space they think they deserve.

There are several conversations I wish I could have with every driver on the road. They run sort of like this:

- Why are you riding so far to the right when you have 6ft more on the left? You have a lane, I have a lane. You use yours and let me use mine.

- If I were to swing a baseball bat 3ft from your head you wouldn't like sure. It wouldn't make you feel any better if I answered "I didn't hit you, did I?" Well, your car is a lot bigger and a lot more deadly than a baseball bat. So understand why I'm upset and give me a little more space please.

- What does it cost you to slow briefly to let me pass a parked car? It might take you 1sec to pass that car, it might take me only 2sec. The difference is only 1sec! Is 1sec of your time worth the rest of my life and the possibility of you going to jail for vehicular homicide?

- If I wasn't commuting on the bike I'd be in my car. If you came up behind me then you would still lose that second because you'd be further back in the line of traffic. But when I'm on the bike you can pass me almost anywhere, if not immediately then a second or two later, and then I'll be in your rear-view mirror. If I was in my car you could pass me almost nowhere. Until our paths eventually parted I'd be one more car in front of you at every stoplight, every stop sign, every ridiculous rotary or awkward Y intersection, every left turn. So don't think of me as an obstruction you have to go around. Think of me as one less car in your way.

- Please pass me now if you can do it safely. Otherwise you'll be following on my shoulder as I dodge sand and glass and potholes, and you will eventually have to pass me in another 1/4mile anyway.

- Please don't yield the right of way to me when it is yours. You are just making the drivers behind you impatient with me.

- Please don't wave me on ahead when I just finished grinding up a steep hill. If the right of way is yours take it. Otherwise you make me obligated to keep going when I'd really like a few moments to rest.

So I wonder how we can get our local governments to run public service campaigns for this sort of stuff?

Pemetic2006

I just assume it's a matter of time until a vehicle hits me.

Steve Whitlatch 

I try so hard to see all of the cyclists on the road. Seems many of them cannot see a 60 ft semi though. Things happen in heavy traffic. Many times because the cyclist is behind me, the angle does not let them see the bonehead moves people are making in traffic in front of me. I have had instances were I have come with in an inch of taking out an idiot driving a car coming from the other direction flying around a double parked car into part of my lane because I was trying my hardest to not push the cyclist into the parked cars on my right, only to be greeted at the red light by a self righteous hipster yelling at me for almost hitting him. All I could say to him was, "yeah you were a little to quick for me this time".

The Golden Boy 

Isn't that similar to what all motorcyclists say "it's not if you lay the bike down, it's WHEN..."

rhm

A few days, seriously? He's the one who doesn't belong on the road. If you don't trust him to drive safely, he shouldn't be driving at all.

I realise New Jersey is different from Washington, but my teenagers are not learning to drive until they demonstrate a level of maturity commensurate with the responsibility involved. In other words, not until further notice.

As for school buses, they are a necessary evil. Schools are underfunded already, a ridiculous proportion of the budget goes to transportation already, and our communities are not designed for walking. But dangerous as they are, they are predictable. You know when they will be on the road, you know how they drive, and you can know where they are going. You can avoid them.

One of the reasons why I get up at 4:15 AM is so I can get to work before the school buses start running.

oddjob2

Our school district is smart enough not to offer busing. It is walk, ride, or uber-parent. Nice to see all the packed bike racks at the schools, K-12, when there is no snow/ice.

pastorbobnlnh 

Soooooooo true!!

My only child, a daughter, one month before she turned 16 in November lost her "privilege" to drive that entire school year and into the first half of the next summer.

The short version of the back story: Asked me if she could have hair trimmed before Homecoming. My wife was out of town. I asked her to make her appointment. When I came back to pick her up in 45 minutes, she was in the middle of a full "cut and color" and the stylist told me it would be another hour plus. I also knew I was now in for something north of $100 and not the planned $30+/-. Turned out my wife had told her she couldn't do this before she left town. Both of us were !

On the way home, I told her, "If I can't trust you to tell the truth about a haircut, I can't trust you with my car." Since I had already paid for Driver's Ed beginning in November (only good for 3 months), I made her pay for the second time the next summer.

I have a bus driver story to share with @Ed. but I'll wait a bit since it is not bicycle related.

scozim 

Oh no problem there. He still doesn't have the license because he decided to flunk drivers ed the first time. So, the money for that class came out of his account and he had to pay for the next one which he did pass. He won't have the license for awhile because of the maturity level and it's coming up to winter. He's slowly getting it but it has been reiterated over and over that driving is a privilege and not a right.

On the school bus side of things - at least the drivers are all pretty courteous on the rural roads - I just avoid them in town.

himespau 

Yeah, buses scare the crap out of me when I see them ahead weaving in and out over bike lanes as they go around curves (or just on straight roads). I hate thinking about what the ones behind me that I can't see are doing.

Velognome 

Somethings happens on the day after Labor Day, not sure if it's in the water or it's some moon/tide thing going on, but commuters go nuts for about a week then it slowly returns to normal.

I had a School Crossing Guard try to wave me into on-coming traffic! When I stopped before making the turn, the CG yelled, something to the effect "bicycles are too dangerous"........You my dear, are too dangerous!

jimmuller 

A few days ago I saw a very effective TV commercial produced by Verizon Wireless, perhaps during a broadcast of an NFL game. It showed a traffic accident, cut to a woman driving a car with her daughter in the car, cut to the driver with her eyes on her cell phone saying "Oh look at the picture you <somebody> posted", then cut back to the accident. The trailing caption went something like "No picture is worth it. The picture can wait..."

Very effective message. I applaud Verizon Wireless for putting it out.

I wonder if we could convince them or someone else to put out similar spots for driver safety, bicycle-related or not.

Hypno Toad

School buses are some of the scariest vehicles on the road. My commute route goes past three schools (primary, junior, and high schools), never a 'safe' time to avoid buses and parent drivers (hate them too).

I spent a few months driving a school bus, got an insiders view of the people driving them and the overall environment they work in.

Training is minimal
Experience driving large vehicles is not required
Pay is TERRIBLE
You have your back to as many as 72 kids, while operating a large vehicle. Teachers have ~30 kids.
Routes are set for 'best conditions', so typically drivers are running behind schedule and rushing
Always understaffed - at the garage I worked at, the mechanic was a back-up driver nearly every day.

Add to that, the HUGE space under the chassis, between the wheels, it's SO DAMNED EASY for kids (or bikes) to end up under the vehicle.

I tell no lies, I have nightmares about that 6 months, even 20 years later. (side note, still not the WORST job I've ever had... that's a story for another day)

None of this is to defend the drivers, this is to tell you on a bike, do not ride close to school buses. This is true for all large vehicles. And anytime you see an unsafe bus driver, report it!

photogravity

@Ed. How did your visit to the police station go? Any updates? Inquiring minds want to know.

Prowler 

Here, northwest of Philadelphia, we have the Chester Valley Trail - converted rail line thru some neighborhoods, office parks, shopping centers, etc. Much variety. There are several road crossings, some in quiet neighborhoods, some busy State roads with mostly commuters and delivery trucks and buses. Most of the crossings do not have lights, just stop signs for trail users. I think that none of them have stop signs for the road traffic - just trail warnings.

I'm, frankly, amazed at the high level of courtesy I've been seeing from the road traffic. Every time I ride this route (15 miles out to the west end then back to the car) I get surprised at the cars that see me/us nearing a road crossing and slow/stop to let us go. I always stand on the pedals and slow or stop 10 to 15 feet back from the curb, planning to let them go (a hole will be along shortly - "yield to everyone") but they stop anyway and wave me across. Very nice. Even the two 6 lane crossings are not too scary. Sorta renews your faith in people. I probably would not last too long if I had to commute on a bike - no street smarts.